Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

for them. We needed to finesse making an “ask” with
something more sophisticated than closed-ended questions
with their yes-no dynamic.
That’s when I realized that what we had been doing
wasn’t communication; it was verbal flexing. We wanted
them to see things our way and they wanted us to see it their
way. If you let this dynamic loose in the real world,
negotiation breaks down and tensions flare. That whole
ethos permeated everything the FBI was doing. Everything
was a showdown. And it didn’t work.
Our approach to proof-of-life questions embodied all
these problems.
At the time, we proved that our hostages were alive by
devising questions that asked for a piece of information only
the hostage could know. Computer-security-style questions,
like, “What’s the name of Martin’s first dog?” or “What’s
Martin’s dad’s middle name?”
This particular type of question had many failings,
however. For one thing, it had sort of become a signature of
law enforcement in the kidnapping world. When a family
starts asking a question of that type, it’s a near certainty that
the cops are coaching them. And that makes kidnappers
very nervous.
Even beyond the nerves, you had the problem that
answering questions like those required little, if any, effort.
The bad guys go and get the fact and give it to you right
away, because it’s so easy. Bang, bang, bang! It happens so
fast that you didn’t gain any tactical advantage, any usable